Strategic reports of the organized crime threat/risk assessment (OCTA or OCRA) type were introduced as essential components of strategic planning and law-enforcement policies in several EU Member States, the U.S. and Australia. They are the latest analytical instruments, which make use of modern methodologies in assessing the current situation, building forecasts about future trends, and recommending measures to be undertaken by the government. In this respect these reports are not considered as an alternative of neither the more traditional approach exemplified by the so-called “situation reports”, conveying the organized crime panorama in the national environment, nor of the so-called “reviewing reports” – instead, they make use of these in developing concrete forecasts and recommendations.

It should be emphasized that the international expertise in producing OCTA reports was enriched by Europol’s interaction with EU member states’ national law-enforcement institutions in developing organized crime threat assessments within the European Union. Such documents reflect also the increasing risks associated with transnational crime, which benefited from the EU enlargement through integrating several former members of the Communist bloc, in its criminal export activities and in the widening of both black and grey markets within the Community space.

CSD has studied the experience in the area of organized crime threat assessment of the following countries and organizations: